Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/809 on 08.20.2017 by CS (TIS)This collection of published works is an outcome of my practice-led inter-disciplinary
collaborative artistic research into deepening understanding of creative process in
the field of contemporary dance. It comprises thirty written works published from
1999 to 2007 in various formats and platforms. This collection is framed by a
methodological discussion that provides insight into how this research has
intersected over time with diverse fields of practice including contemporary dance,
digital and new media arts and non-art domains such as cognitive and social
science. Fields are understood in the context of this research to be largely
constituted out of the expert practices of individual collaborators.
This research starts from an interest in the Impact of new media technologies on
dance making/ choreography. The collection of works show evidence, established in
the first two publications, of an evolving engagement with two concepts related to
this interest: (1) the 'algorithm' as a process-level connection or bridge between
dance composition and computation; (2) the empirical study of movement
embedded as a 'knowledge base' in the practices of both computer animation and
dance and thus forming a special correspondence between them.
This collection provides evidence of this research through a period of community-building
amongst artists using new media technologies in performance, and
culminates in the identification of an emerging 'community of practice' coming
together around the formation of a unique body of knowledge pertaining to dance.
The late 1990s New Media Art movement provided a supportive context for
Important peer-to-peer encounters with creators and users of software tools and
platforms in the context of inter-disciplinary art-making. A growing interest in
software programming as a creative practice opened up fresh perspectives on
possible connections with dance making. It became clear that software's utility
alone, including artistic uses of software, was a limited conception.
This was the background thinking that informed the first major shift in the research
towards the design of software that might augment the creative process of expert
choreographers and dancers. This shift from software use to its design, framed by a
focus on the development of tools to support dance creation, also provided strong
rationale to deepen the research into dance making processes. In the second major
phase of the research presented here, scientific study is brought collaboratively to
bear on questions related to choreographic practice. This lead to a better
understanding of ways in which dancers and choreographers, as 'thinking bodies',
interact with their design tools and each other in the context of creation work.
In addition to this collection, outcomes of this research are traceable to other
published papers and art works it has given rise to. Less easily measureable, but
just as valuable, are the sustained relations between individuals and groups behind
the 'community of practice' now recognised for its development of unique formats for
bringing choreographic ideas and processes into contact, now and in the future, with
both general audiences and other specialist practices
